Global climate change is not a political position but a scientific discovery!

We are amazed at some of the angry and uninformed comments that our blogposts about climate change have inspired in so forward-thinking a region as San Francisco. Our first blogpost made the argument that what America needs is a consensus on physical reality based on science, so that our disagreements can be about what to do, not what is real. Yet many readers continue to believe that if the implications of global climate change are something they dislike, then rather than contributing positively with solutions to the problem that might be more acceptable to them, they can just deny that the problem even exists. Global climate change caused by human activities is not a Democratic position but a scientific discovery! If you are in doubt about this, please read the following articulate plea to his fellow Republicans from Sherwood Boehlert, the former Republican chair of the House Committee on Science and Technology, who is distressed by the widespread Republican denial of science:

Sherwood Boehlert

Watching the raft of newly elected GOP lawmakers converge on Washington, I couldn’t help thinking about an issue I hope our party will better address. I call on my fellow Republicans to open their minds to rethinking what has largely become our party’s line: denying that climate change and global warming are occurring and that they are largely due to human activities.

National Journal reported last month that 19 of the 20 serious GOP Senate challengers declared that the science of climate change is either inconclusive or flat-out wrong. Many newly elected Republican House members take that position. It is a stance that defies the findings of our country’s National Academy of Sciences, national scientific academies from around the world and 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists…

There is a natural aversion to more government regulation. But that should be included in the debate about how to respond to climate change, not as an excuse to deny the problem’s existence. The current practice of disparaging the science and the scientists only clouds our understanding and delays a solution. The record flooding, droughts and extreme weather in this country and others are consistent with patterns that scientists predicted for years. They are an ominous harbinger.

The new Congress should have a policy debate to address facts rather than a debate featuring unsubstantiated attacks on science. We shouldn’t stand by while the reputations of scientists are dragged through the mud in order to win a political argument. And no member of any party should look the other way when the basic operating parameters of scientific inquiry — the need to question, express doubt, replicate research and encourage curiosity — are exploited for the sake of political expediency. My fellow Republicans should understand that wholesale, ideologically based or special-interest-driven rejection of science is bad policy. And that in the long run, it’s also bad politics.

What is happening to the party of Ronald Reagan? He embraced scientific understanding of the environment and pollution and was proud of his role in helping to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. That was smart policy and smart politics. Most important, unlike many who profess to be his followers, Reagan didn’t deny the existence of global environmental problems but instead found ways to address them.

Boehlert is now an adviser to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group of leading American businesses who urge passage of cap and trade legislation. Partners include General Electric, Alcoa, Duke Energy, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. USCAP called on Congress to act, saying “in our view, the climate change challenge will create more economic opportunities than risks for the U.S. economy.”